Paper Summary:

This paper attempts to explain the connection between the Great Depression and WWII by looking at how the Great Depression was brought to an end and what factors led to the outbreak of World War II, including the United States' entry into the conflict. The paper also explains that the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and the immediate entry of the United States into the conflict was separate from the events unfolding in Europe. The paper concludes that the Great Depression did indeed contribute to the outbreak of WWII because, while it was a very real and burdensome economic catastrophe, the Great Depression's real significance was that it caused aggression to be overlooked until it had escalated to such enormous proportions that the only way to halt its spread was armed conflict.

From the Paper:

"The end result of a world engulfed in decades of conflict was war. But as any study of history shows, conflicts do not always escalate into wars. Economic uncertainty and monetary depression do not always lead to war either. In recent years, the stock market has fallen more dramatically than the fateful dive on Black Thursday of 1929. Yet it certainly didn't result in war and barely even caused a blip on the nation's economic graphs. What must be pointed out is that the wide economic fluctuations of recent years have not occurred in a world society ravaged by conflict. Various areas of the world are always in conflict at varying times but not the widespread conquests for power that occurred just prior to World War II. So the question remains, "Did the Great Depression contribute to the outbreak of World War II, and if it did, to what extent?" It is this intersection of economic collapse and worldwide conflict that led to the outbreak of war, and on this point, the Depression contributed significantly."

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